Monday, February 16, 2009

I am in India now, arrived two weeks ago. Working w/ our outsourcing team at FIS Chandigarh - which is in northern India, between, and capitol of, the Haryana and Punjab states. So far, it's been very interesting discovering what the team is all about and the city as well, and I think I am going to get a ton of really great experience leading so many developers working here for 6 months.

The initial week was \a bit tough - I've been challenging these guys regarding the legacy the code - why certain decisions were made, etc, and so far everyone has been responding very positively - I am noticing an improvement in code quality, as well as the final output - and it shows - so far our work is looking like it will produce significant improvements in performance and reliability.

So, for the next release, we're doing major surgery to Compensation spreadsheet. We're doing code cleanup and consolidation for this release (7.1.6). After we get a baseline of all used templates and functions in the code base, we're going to dive in and actually clean up the code - rewrite parts of it as jquery plugins - so it remains looking like it does, but works significantly better and faster.

Other than work, Tushar helped me find a cool apartment in the city - 3 bedrooms, 2 bath - which is only 3.5 km (about 2 miles) from work. I also picked up a sweet folding bike (I like to have a mode of transportation when I am traveling, and bike is my preferred mode :). I have been able to ride a bit around the city - drivers here are CRAZY. Everyone honks at each other - not as a sign of disrespect, as one would expect, rather, as a notice of one's presence - as in, "hey, I am here, watch out." Makes sense, too, as no one follows traffic rules :)

Air quality here is not great - so at height of traffic, it's pretty stuffy on the roads. Nonetheless, biking isn't bad at all, and it gives me a chance to exercise and see the city.

My girlfriend is arriving this week - on Friday. She'll be here with me for 6 months. We're hoping to start a regular yoga practice, and she's hoping to study yoga to be an instructor. I'm also hoping to pick up a new skill - there is a horse-riding school here, a tennis club and a golf club. I would love to learn tennis, and gold is great too. So, if anyone has any suggestions, please DO pass them along!

Otherwise, things are pretty good. I am settling in and doing some good work. I will try to update people regularly, and promise to send a pictures link when I get some up!